Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to a method, system and computer-usable medium for predictive computer system resource monitoring.
Description of the Related Art
Computer systems often coordinate a variety of resources to accomplish desired tasks. For example, a computer system typically includes one or more processors that execute instructions stored in random access memory to generate visual information for presentation at a display with a graphics processor. The processors and memory often support multiple applications simultaneously that perform desired tasks, such as word processing, spreadsheet calculations, web browsing, serving web pages, storing data in persistent storage devices, retrieving data, etc. A resource manager associated with the computer system typically manages the assignment of resources to perform tasks in an efficient manner. For example, an operating system might assign processing threads and memory to applications based upon the workload demands of the applications. As another example, a hypervisor assigns physical processing resources between multiple virtual machines based upon workload demands of the virtual machines and the availability of the physical processing resources.
Under normal operating conditions, the resource manager periodically performs a resource collection that aligns processing demands for tasks with physical processing resources. A task is provided access to resources collected for the task based upon the demands faced by the task and based upon the available resources. For example, a web server is provided access to a limited portion of processing threads and memory based upon the demands of client requests placed upon the web server and the demands of other tasks that share the physical resources of the web server. The web server is allowed to use the collected resources and the actual resource consumption of the web server is monitored by the resource manager. At the next resource collection, the resources assigned to the web server adapt based upon the resource consumption of the web server and the resource consumption of other tasks that share resources with the web server.
One difficulty that arises with periodic resource collection responsive to monitoring of resource consumption is that a failure in task performance can lead to inefficient resource collection and consumption. For instance, an application that hangs, crashes or otherwise suffers performance degradation can impact other tasks before the difficulty is detected and corrected. In some instances, a relatively minor application error can impact the performance of other more important and unrelated tasks in unpredictable and negative ways.